Sports wheelchairs, which are normally used in sports for handicapped people, differ from everyday life wheelchairs by the fact that they possess a rigid frame construction and have no parking brake, since this can represent a danger of injury for teammates and competitors in competitive sports. However, there is often a desire to use sports wheelchairs in everyday life due to their stability. This desire can be satisfied by attaching a common lever parking brake which can be swung inwards with a handle while practicing the sport, thus eliminating the risk of injury, or also by simply having the option of detaching the parking brake from the wheelchair.
In these types of common parking brakes, the force applying elements are springs or rubber bands, which can be tensed by swiveling the lever and which can rotate the pivoted lever by loosening the brake in its neutral position. The fastening and loading of these springs or rubber bands is relatively complex, since the construction of the brake itself is complicated.
This type of parking brake is exemplified in DE 93 09 593 U1 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,346,039, or DE 94 05 091 U1 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,472,066.